Two places in the South East have made the shortlist for the Irish Times Best Place to live in Ireland
Both Waterford City and Gorey in County Wexford are "strong contenders" on the list of 20 which was whittled down from an original 470 places.
Conor Goodman from the Irish Times explained how the places were judged:
"We have two I media people, Rosita Boland is one, she's probably one of the most experienced journalists in travelling the country and then we have Dr Ilona Duffy from Monaghan who is a GP there, we really wanted someone who had a good understanding of public health facilities in places as we emerge from the pandemic.
Then we have the Mayo County Architect and we also have researchers at a local level who visited places and did pretty extensive reports on dereliction and what locals thought of their town. Then on top of that we do data analysis on the places and their populations as well."
Speaking about one of the South East contenders, Gorey, Conor said it's also to do with the dereliction and occupancy numbers in buildings:
"To talk about Gorey for a minute, some of the things that really made it stand out; it has a very young population, the increased number of people moving there gives a place a vibrancy. It means that when you walk down the main street in Gorey, pretty much every shop is occupied, that is not something you can say about every town in Ireland."
The winner will be announced in late September.
